Category Archives: Vegetables

Field Pea Puree with Wilted Kale

This is a recipe with a Southern twist, inspired by a New York City restaurant dish that itself is based on a classic from Italy.

King is a bistro in the Soho area of Manhattan that serves simple comfort food influenced by the food of Italy and Southern France. Their recipe for “Chickpea Puree with Wilted Dandelion Greens” first appeared in the Wall Street Journal in February 2017.

A creamy warm puree of chickpeas topped with dandelion greens, which have been wilted and simply seasoned with salt, pepper and good olive oil, it is a comforting dish for the cold days of February. The New York restaurant version is based on a simple Italian dish known as “crema di ceci e cicoria”

Rather than chickpeas I turned in a Southern direction and tried a variation on the recipe with field peas. Field peas are plentiful and common in our corner of the south at the height of summer. Last year we saw plenty in our CSA box and cooked and froze a few bags ready to enjoy in the middle of winter.

Field peas thrive in the hot, humid Southern summers. They are a family of legumes that come in a variety of guises and go by a range of names from the well known black eye peas to crowder peas, cowpeas, pink eyed peas and lady cream peas.

Thawed from the freezer it didn’t take long to combine the field peas with some aromatics and turn them into a soft, warm puree which went perfectly with some simply cooked and seasoned greens. A truly comforting dish for a winter’s day.

Field Pea Puree with Wilted Kale

12oz cooked field peas (I thawed a bag that I had previously cooked and frozen)

1 sprig rosemary

8 small sage leaves

5-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and lightly crushed with the side of a knife

1 small potato, peeled and diced

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 bunch kale (or greens of your choice)

Put the peas in a heavy bottomed pan and add water to cover. Add the rosemary, sage, garlic, potato and 1/2 cup of the olive oil.

Bring to a boil over medium high heat and then turn down to a simmer and cook until the potato is tender, 20-25 minutes. Drain, reserving the cooking liquid.

Remove the rosemary, sage leaves and garlic cloves.

In a food processor, puree the field peas and potato with the other 1/2 cup of olive oil and 3 tablespoons of the cooking liquid.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add more oil or cooking water as desired to achieve a smooth consistency.

Meanwhile, take a bunch of greens (I used kale), and cook in salted water until tender. Once cooked, drain and then season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Spoon the puree onto a plate, drizzle with a little more oil and serve with the greens on top.

Curtido: Fermented Cabbage Relish

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I’m no stranger to the art of fermentation, having been making beer and wine for over 30 years, but my adventures in fermenting food have been a little more limited.

My efforts have been largely limited to simple cabbage based ferments such as sauerkraut or kimchi, occasionally experimenting with other vegetables such as collard greens and tomatoes.

The theme for the November Food in Jars Mastery Challenge was fermentation and although I went with a cabbage based recipe it included quite a few other goodies and was something completely new to me: curtido, a cabbage relish from El Salvador that typically also features onions and carrots and is seasoned with oregano and lime juice.

It was a good opportunity to use some of the glut of napa cabbage from my CSA box as well as some of the fragrant oregano I had dried from my own garden.

Google “curtido” and you’ll find wealth of recipes, all very similar with slight variations. I followed this one with a few tweaks.

The result was a tangy and tasty, like a fermented coleslaw and it makes an excellent side dish or is great on a burger.

Curtido: Fermented Cabbage Relish

1lb chopped napa cabbage

1 tbs pickling salt

5oz carrots, sliced thinly on a mandolin

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 jalapeno, thinly sliced

1 green apple, peeled and thinly sliced

1 tbs dried oregano

Juice of a lime

Put the cabbage and salt in glass or metal bowl, massage the salt into cabbage then leave for a couple of hours. The leaves should start to soften and yield some moisture.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well to combine. Spoon the mixture into a quart jar and press down well.

I used a fermentation kit from masonjarlifestyle.com which provides everything you need to start playing about with fermentation in wide mouth mason jars. It comes with a silicon fermenting lid, and airlock and a glass weight which fits neatly in the jar to press down the vegetables below the brine.

If you don’t have any of that gear just put some cloth or paper towel on top secured with an rubber band and place on a plate to catch any liquid that might overflow.

Keep the jar out on a counter top for 2-3 days, checking occasionally that the liquid is bubbling and the mix has a tangy smell and flavour.

After that you can transfer the jar to your fridge and enjoy within 3-4 weeks.

Dried Tomatoes: Feta and Tomato Dip

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We invested in a dehydrator many years ago and have found it a very useful way to help deal with gluts from our garden and CSA box.

The most common items we dry are apples for snacking and cabbage to add to soups and stews in the winter. We have also found it great for drying herbs from the garden when they start growing out of control.

Ours is a 4 tray Excalibur brand dehydrator which are easy to find online. It is easy to use and has proved very reliable over many years of use.

One of the options for the Food in Jars mastery challenge for October was dehydrating so I thought I’d have a go at something I haven’t tried drying before: tomatoes. We preserve loads of tomatoes at the height of summer but most of them are turned into sauce, paste or jam.

Even though the end of October beckons there are still a few late season tomatoes around in my part of Georgia. Last week’s CSA box included some grape tomatoes which made ideal candidates for the dehydrator.

Prepping them was easy: I just washed them and halved them, before loading them onto the dehydrator trays. Some folks season them at this stage or marinate them before drying but I just left them as they were, preferring to season when I come to use them in the future.

Having loaded the tomatoes into the dehydrator I set the temperature to 135 degrees F and turned it on. They took around 9 hours in total. Larger tomatoes would take a bit longer. The trick is to regularly check them to see if they have achieved the desired result where they are dry and slightly leathery.

Once they have cooled store them in an airtight jar. I look forward to using them to get a burst of summer flavour in some of my winter cooking but I couldn’t resist putting some of them to use sooner than that. I softened some in oilve oil before whipping together with feta and yogurt to make a tangy and tasty dip.

Feta and Tomato Dip

0.25 cup dried grape tomatoes

3 tbs extra virgin olive oil

0.5 cup plain yogurt (I used fat free)

2oz crumbled feta cheese (I used an excellent goats cheese feta from a local farm)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put the dried tomatoes and the olive oil in a bowl and leave for 30-40 minutes for the tomatoes to soften a little.

Put both the oil and tomatoes in a food processor and blitz for a few seconds to start chopping the tomatoes.

Add the yogurt and feta and process until blended into a pink hued chunky dip.

Season to taste with salt and black pepper. As feta tends to be salty you may only need the black pepper.

Enjoy with crudites or on crackers.

Fava Bean Bruschetta with Pecan Dukkah

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I have written before about my love for dukkah, the Egyptian spice mix of nuts, herbs and spices. I always have a jar on hand in the kitchen and find it a remarkably versatile ingredient, adding a burst of flavour and texture to so many things. I sprinkle it on roasted vegetables, enjoy it with bread and olive oil and have even added it to chocolate.

My go to recipe for dukkah is based on pistachios but recently I picked up a big bag of Georgia pecans from a farm shop and simply had to try a batch of pecan dukkah. I was delighted with the result.

As luck would have it, this coincided with having a batch of broad beans, or fava beans as they are known on this side of the Atlantic, on hand. One of my favourite vegetables, fresh ones are pretty hard to find in my neck of the woods so I invariably grab some whenever I find some. Extracting the beans from their velvet lined pods is a particularly enjoyable thing to do.

I lightly boiled the beans until tender whilst toasting some slices of whole wheat bread. I then spread a generous layer of fresh goats cheese on the bread and then liberally sprinkled it with some of the dukkah before adding some of the cooked beans and adding more dukkah on top.

It made for a simple yet deeply satisfying lunch dish.

Pecan Dukkah

4oz shelled pecans

1 tbsp cumin seeds

1 tbsp coriander seeds

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1 tsp chili flakes

1 tsp sea salt

Lightly toast the pecans over medium heat in a small pan until they are aromatic, about 4-5 minutes. Keep a close eye on them as they can burn easily. Remove from the heat, allow them to cool a little, then roughly chop them.

In the same pan, gently toast the cumin and coriander seeds over medium heat until they are aromatic, about 4-5 minutes. Place in a pestle and mortar and lightly crush.

Gently toast the sesame seeds in the same way and then add to the pestle and mortar along with the chopped pecans. Bash them until the nuts are broken into small pieces, then add the chili flakes and salt and stir well to combine. Transfer to a jar where the mix will keep for a few weeks.

Spicy Pickled Green Tomatoes

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Summer in this part of the world has finally finished. The temperatures have dipped slightly and the stifling humidity of a few weeks ago has dissipated, making this one of my favourite times of year weather wise.

The corn, cucumbers and peaches have disappeared from our CSA box, to be replaced by squashes, sweet potatoes and apples.

I am trying to make the most of the last remnants of this year’s tomato harvest before they too disappear until next summer. This weekend I oven roasted a big batch of cherry tomatoes with garlic and thyme and then passed it through a food mill to make a batch of deeply savoury sauce to freeze for the winter.

Both in the garden and at the market there is a sudden glut of green tomatoes as the hours of sunlight in the day begin to wane.

As a kid in England I remember my Mum struggling to come up with a use for the green tomatoes left in our garden at the end of summer. I recall that green tomato chutney seemed to be the only option anyone could think of and no one had much enthusiasm for either making or consuming it.

Here in the South, green tomatoes are much more of a staple, and I have come to love the classic Southern fried green tomatoes.

When faced with a small glut of green tomatoes I opted for pickling them. I used this recipe from Food In Jars for inspiration but tweaked the end result in a different direction by changing out the seasonings for something a bit spicier.

The result is great: a sharp, tart, spicy pickle that goes particularly well paired with a creamy goats cheese or a brie or camembert.

Spicy Pickled Green Tomatoes

1lb green tomatoes

1 cup water

1 cup white vinegar

1 tbs pickling salt

1 tsp black peppercorns

4 garlic cloves

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp red pepper flakes

Combine the water, vinegar and salt and bring to a boil.

Put the following into each sterilised 8oz jar:-

0.25 tsp black peppercorns

1 garlic clove

0.25 tsp mustard seeds

0.25 tsp red pepper flakes

Cut the tomatoes into wedges and pack as tightly as you can into the jars.

Pour the brine into the jars, leaving a headspace of half an inch. Use a chopstick to remove any air bubbles and top up with brine if necessary. Apply lids and then process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes. If you need to know more about water bath canning there is a good introductory guide on the Ball canning website.

Yield: 4x 8oz jars

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Pickled Garlic

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The topic for the May Food in Jars Mastery Challenge was cold pack canning, which as the name suggests, involves putting the food in the jar cold and uncooked before adding liquid and processing. It is a quick and straightforward method but some vegetables and fruits are more suited to this treatment than others.

I found this month’s subject more challenging than previous months purely because of finding something suitable to preserve. I prefer to use seasonal produce from the farmer’s market when I can and many of the best candidates for cold pack canning simply weren’t in season yet.

Luckily, as the clock ticked away towards the end of the month, my friends at Riverview Farms came to the rescue, bringing bundles of freshly picked garlic to the farmer’s market. This wasn’t the dried old stuff with papery skins that you find in the supermarket but plump and juicy garlic cloves not long out of the ground. They are easy to peel and large cloves means it is a quick and easy exercise to fill the jars and before you know it you have some good looking jars of pickled garlic stashed away.

I followed Marisa McClellan’s recipe for “Pickled Garlic Cloves” from “Preserving by the Pint”, using homemade pickling spice. Her recipe made 3 half pint jars but I only managed 2, probably because of the large garlic cloves I had.

Pickled Garlic

1 pound fresh garlic, peeled

2 cups red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon pickling salt

2 teaspoons pickling spice (see recipe below)

Put the vinegar in a nonreactive pan, add the pickling salt, and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt.

Put a teaspoon of the pickling spice mix into each of the two half pint jars, then pack the garlic cloves as tightly as you can into the jar. Pour the hot brine over, leaving half an inch of headspace. Tap the jars to eliminate any air bubbles, wipe the rims, apply the lid and ring and process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes.

Yield: 2 half pint jars

Pickling Spice

3 tbs yellow mustard seeds

1 tbs coriander seeds

1 tbs whole allspice berries

1.5 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp ground ginger

2 inch cinnamon stick

4 cloves

2 bay leaves

Make the pickling spice mix, Lightly crush the mustard seeds, coriander seeds, allspice berries and cloves using a pestle and mortar. Break the cinnamon into small pieces and rip up the bay leaves. Add to the mix along with the red pepper flakes and ground ginger. Mix well to combine.

Quick Pickled Sweet Peppers

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I’m a sucker for eye catching produce and in particular am often unable to resist the colourful pepper section at one of my favourite Asian markets in town. They have a vast array, ranging from mild to really hot, including many you simply wouldn’t find in a regular grocery store.

Last time I was tempted by the red poblanos, which I turned into pepper jelly, but this time a pile of sweet, mini, multi-coloured bell peppers caught my eye. They were the perfect subject for the quick pickle treatment for this month’s Food In Jars Mastery Challenge.

As the name suggest, quick pickles are fast and easy. You simply make a brine with vinegar, water, sugar (or another sweetener of your choice) and spices. As they are kept in the fridge they do not need any sort of water bath processing or special equipment. Just prep your vegetable of choice, stick it in a jar, pour over the hot brine and you will soon be enjoying crisp, tasty pickles.

The taste of your final product will be heavily influenced by your choice of pickling spice. Of course, you can just go out and buy a jar of ready made pickling spice but where is the fun in that? Make your own and you can customise the flavour and spice level to your own liking.

For my quick pickles I loosely followed a recipe from Cathy Barrow’s “Mrs.Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry”. I started with her basic spice mix but cut back on the cinnamon, which I often find overpowering, and made it a little spicier.

This was a quick and fairly simple recipe and the peppers were ready to eat within a day of making them. I’ve already enjoyed them on veggie tacos and added to sandwiches and salads. They may not have the shelf life of water bath processed pickles but they don’t look like lasting long anyway.

Quick Pickled Sweet Peppers

12oz mixed sweet mini peppers

1 cup water

1 cup white or apple cider vinegar

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 tbs salt

1 tbs granulated sugar

1.5 tsp pickling spice (recipe below)

Pickling Spice

3 tbs yellow mustard seeds

1 tbs coriander seeds

1 tbs whole allspice berries

1.5 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp ground ginger

2 inch cinnamon stick

4 cloves

2 bay leaves

Prep the peppers by washing them and cutting them into thin slices. As I used small peppers they were the perfect size to fit in a jar. Larger bell peppers will work but might need cutting down to smaller strips. Pack the peppers into a sterilised quart jar.

In a nonreactive pan combine the water, vinegar, garlic, salt, sugar and pickling spice. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Pour the brine into the jar, ensuring the peppers are covered. Once the jar has cooled down pop a lid on.

Leave for about 24 hours before trying. Store in the refrigerator and use within a month.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Stilton Sauce

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As the name suggests, purple sprouting broccoli is a bright purple cousin of regular broccoli, producing small vivid violet florets.

It is rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic but holds a special place in the hearts of British vegetable lovers. It is a frost hardy plant that grows slowly through the winter, reaching its peak between February and April, thus providing a welcome burst of colour and flavour in the garden and on the plate when folks are starting to tire of winter but the delights of the spring vegetable garden still seem a long way away.

So imagine my delight to find some recently at one of my local farmers markets.

It is tender enough to nibble raw so doesn’t need a lot of cooking and whilst a versatile vegetable I find a relatively simple approach is best.

It takes just 2-3 minutes in a steamer to cook, maybe a minute or so longer if the stalks are on the thick or woody side.

It is glorious just dipped into a soft boiled egg but I also like to pair it with a simple blue cheese sauce. Just eat it with your fingers, licking off any stray sauce.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Stilton Sauce

1 bunch purple sprouting broccoli

6 fl.oz (0.75 cup) heavy whipping cream

3oz Stilton cheese

Bring water to a boil in a steamer (if you don’t have one just put a colander above a pan of boiling water)

To make the sauce simply warm the cream over medium heat and crumble in the cheese. Stir regularly until the cheese has melted and the sauce is smooth (8-10 minutes).

Trim any thick or woody pieces from the end of the broccoli stalks. Place in the steamer and cook until tender, 2-3 minutes.

Remove the broccoli from the steamer and serve immediately, drizzled with the cheese sauce.

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Collard Green Kimchi

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The February topic for the Food In Jars Mastery Challenge was salt preserving. My only previous experience of this was a batch of preserved lemons a few years ago so I thought I would venture into unknown territory and have a go at making kimchi.

The winter goodies at one of my local farmers markets included eye catching bunches of young collard green leaves, which I thought would be a good candidate for kimchi with a southern twist.

The project also gave me a good excuse to go and explore the aisles of one of the great Asian supermarkets in town to pick up Korean red pepper powder and a big bag of fine Korean sea salt.

The recipe is loosely based on this one from minimalistbaker.com but with quite a few tweaks along the way.

I wanted my kimchi to be vegetarian so the first step was to make a batch of vegetarian fish sauce. For this component I turned to this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated for a deeply savoury sauce made from shiitake mushrooms and soy sauce.

While the sauce was cooling I prepped my collards, washing and drying them before cutting them into bite sized pieces and layering with generous amounts of salt. They were then turned regularly for a number of hours, drawing out moisture and leaving the leaves tender. I used young leaves, which are smaller and more tender to start with than regular collard leaves, but they would work although might need a little more time in the salting process to get tender.

While the salting process was taking place I made a spicy paste from ginger, garlic, Korean chili, onion and the vegetarian fish sauce.

After rinsing the excess salt from the collard leaves and patting them dry again they were thoroughly coated with the spice paste before packing into a jar to ferment.

I was delighted with the result, which tasted great with a good burst of spiciness. I’ll definitely be making more kimchi in the future.

Collard Green Kimchi

Vegetarian Fish Sauce

3 cups water

0.25oz dried shiitake mushrooms

3 tablespoons salt

2 tablespoons soy sauce

Soak the dried mushrooms in one cup of hot water for 15 to 20 minutes. This makes them easier to slice and you can used the soaking water when cooking to add more shiitake goodness to the final sauce. Make sure to strain out any grit from the soaking liquid.

Slice the mushrooms and add to a small pan with the soaking liquid, 2 more cups of water and the salt and soy sauce. Combine all the ingredients, bring to a boil and then simmer over medium heat until reduced by half, 30 – 40 minutes. Strain and set aside to cool.

Spice Paste

3 tbs fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped

10 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped

0.25 cup Korean red chili powder

1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped

0.5 cup vegetarian fish sauce

Place all ingredients into a food processor and whiz until combined into a paste.

Vegetables

1 small bunch young collard green leaves (5-6oz)

4 green onions, sliced into half inch pieces

Remove the stalks from the collard leaves and slice into bite sized pieces. Wash well, drain and dry. Layer the leaves in a bowl with generous amounts of sea salt between each layer. Weigh the leaves down (I used a nest of smaller bowls) and leave for half an hour. Then turn and massage the leaves, ensuring they are still well coated with salt, weigh down once more and leave for another 30 minutes. Repeat this process a further 3 times, by which time the leaves should have lost some moisture and become noticeably tender.

Rinse the leaves to remove any excess salt and then place on paper towels and pat dry.

Next comes the fun part. Put the leaves in a bowl and add the sliced green onions. Then add the spice paste and mix by hand, making sure the vegetables are thoroughly coated with the paste.

Once well combined pack the mixture into a sterilised jar, pressing it down well. Put the lid on and leave in a cool dark place to ferment. Leave for at least 2-3 days and periodically taste to see how the flavour is developing. Once you are happy with it, put it in the fridge. I left mine for a week before refrigerating.

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Black Bean / Red Rice Veggie Burgers

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My wife and I often have crazy work schedules with long hours and late finishes. We usually do a pretty good job of meal planning and prepping food ahead of time to make sure we have something tasty and nutritious to enjoy when we eventually get home but like everyone, there are occasions when we resort to takeout or something quick and easy from the grocery store.

One of our staples on these occasions are spicy black bean burgers from the supermarket freezer. They may be convenient, and they have significantly less fat and zero cholesterol compared to a burger made from beef but a quick glance at the ingredient list reveals such delights as disodium inosinate and thiamin hydrochloride as well as unspecified artificial flavors.

I therefore set out to create my own spicy black bean burger, with ingredients I recognise and a customised spice blend to suit our palates.

As well as black beans I included red rice to help bind the burger together. I’m a big fan of red rice, which is available quite cheaply in big bags from our local Asian supermarkets. It’s nutty flavour not only works well in this recipe but I find it makes a great base for salads. You could cook dried black beans for this recipe but I opted for a can. I used low sodium beans to give me more control over the seasoning

Black Bean / Red Rice Burgers

15oz can of black beans, rinsed and drained

4oz cooked red rice

0.5 medium red onion, chopped

1oz breadcrumbs

1 large garlic clove

0.5 tsp sweet paprika

0.5 tsp smoked paprika

0.5 tsp crushed red pepper

0.5 tsp salt

0.5 tsp black pepper

0.5 tsp ground cumin

0.5 tsp ground coriander seed

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and process until the mixture is combined but still relatively coarse in texture.

By hand, form the mixture into four patties, each about half an inch thick.

In a skillet or frying pan, warm about a quarter of an inch of olive oil over medium high heat. Let the burger form a good brown crust on one side before flipping. Cook the burgers for about 5 minutes on each side until crisp on the outside and heated through.

Serve them in a burger bun with the toppings of your choice.

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Brit In The South

A Blog from the Deep South with a British Twist

Category Archives: Vegetables

Field Pea Puree with Wilted Kale

Curtido: Fermented Cabbage Relish

Dried Tomatoes: Feta and Tomato Dip

Fava Bean Bruschetta with Pecan Dukkah

Spicy Pickled Green Tomatoes

Pickled Garlic

Quick Pickled Sweet Peppers

Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Stilton Sauce

Collard Green Kimchi

Black Bean / Red Rice Veggie Burgers